The How and Why of Grass-Fed Beef Marrow and Fat

I saw beef bones from grass-fed cows for sale the other day at Whole Foods and decided to buy them. I love beef marrow for its flavor, texture and nutrient content, so I boiled the bones in water, which cooked the marrow and created a great (flavor, nutrients) stock . Yes, it was that simple.

After removing the marrow from the bones, I let the stock (with the bones) sit in the refrigerator overnight to allow the fat to harden, which made for easy skimming and removal (photo, above).

I was about to throw away this grass-fed beef fat when I thought to myself, "This is crazy; why the hell would I throw away this flavorful, nutrient-dense fat?" It now rests comfortably in a glass jar in my refrigerator, ready to be used in the cooking of grass-fed hamburgers this weekend.

I'm sure most (if not all) modern-day nutritionists (schooled in the modern-day hypothesis that a low-fat diet, no matter how many chemicals, is a good thing) would tell me I am crazy. My response? I'll take the beef fat's monounsaturated fat and its abundance of nutrients, plus the satiation and flavor it provides, any day of the week over supposedly "heart-healthy" vegetable oils that are devoid of nutrients and flavor and are produced employing a harsh chemical process using canola, soy and corn that are genetically engineered and sprayed with a ton of pesticides.

Trust me, you won't hear any of that anytime soon on any of the national morning news/variety programs.

There also won't be any questions asking when our modern diseases and ailments—obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, attention deficit disorders, cancers, etc.—began to proliferate. When we were eating beef marrow from cows eating grass and chicken skin from chickens eating worms, insects and grass? Or when we started to consume processed alternatives of these traditional foods, ones that contain agents (hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, genetically engineered foods, bleaches, emulsifiers, etc.) that our bodies can't identify and process?

Remember that all beef (and chicken and apples and bread and yogurt) is not created equal. Cattle processed on factory farms, where they are given hormones, antibiotics and genetically engineered feed, are much, much different than cattle eating grass (cows' natural diet) and raised without growth-promoting drugs.